Ask General Kang: Do you celebrate Thanksgiving on your home world?

No, we have several holidays that are somewhat similar, but essentially we break your celebration into two components. And then we have one “thanksgiving” day which is totally alien to your world.

In the late months of the harvest time on Planet Neecknaw, we have a holiday that is probably closest to your Thanksgiving (which is really just a North American holiday, not a global phenomenon.)

Cram It!
This harvest festival is called Cram It! The name really explains it all. The focus is on the cramming or stuffing of things: delicate fruits and nuts into the hollowed-out abdominal cavities of tasty and unsuspecting foul; this and other foods crammed into the gullets of a glutinous simian horde; and for those monkeys who haven’t overdone the gastronomical cramming, there is a special “evening” cramming that happens when the little macaques are in bed, if you get my drift.

Famanguish
We then let the hangover from our Saturnalia-like Cram It! become a distant memory, before we celebrate Famanguish Day, which is when we force ourselves to spend the day with our extended family (whom we usually never see) and ask them to revive all of our crippling emotional traumas. Sometimes families are creative and come up with new traumas especially for that day. Sometimes many. Nobody looks forward to Famanguish, but everyone participates because, “you only have one family.”

Kangsgiving
Then when I was Overlord, I instituted Kangsgiving Day, which followed the day after Famanguish. Kangsgiving is a day of rest, in which you are supposed to sit at home and quietly thank me for not forcing you to go to work after the horrors of Famanguish. Also, you can drink as much coconut or banana liqueur as you’d like, as long as you agree to do a tour of duty in my crack Gorilloid Toilet Cleaning Service. This is a non-combat unit whose sole duty is to clean up after the Gorilloid Army. They can be messy — oh, let’s not mince words, the Gorilloid Army makes the Savage Pooflinging Brigade look fastidious — but hey, all the banana liqueur you want … and I send it to your house.

Next time: Last year you mentioned something about dark matter being a figment of my imagination. How do you explain the rotational speed of our galaxy then?

Other turkeys are being served at alltop. Originally published, October 2007.